Bengaluru Gets A Glimpse Of RK Laxman's Unpublished Cartoons

Bengaluru: The common man may have seen a wealth of cartoons by the legendary RK Laxman. But these days, the people of Bengaluru are busy feasting their eyes on works that have never been in public domain.

Laxman's birth anniversary is on October 24, and to mark the day, a show of his unpublished doodles is currently on at the Indian Institute of Cartoonists.
 Explaining how the cartoons came about, VG Narendra, Managing Trustee, Indian Institute of Cartoonists told NDTV that when Mr Laxman visited his hometown, Mysuru, his brother, Srinivasan, used to ask him to draw doodles.

"One day, his brother brought a scrapbook and asked Laxman to draw cartoons in that more permanently... All 97 beautiful and wonderful doodles are displayed here," he added.
 Mr Laxman died last year on January 26 at the age of 94. His death has seen an outpouring of grief across the nation. For decades, his sympathetic pen had had captured the day to day reality of the 'Common Man', his ups and downs through power politics, price rise, corruption and red-tapism.

Over the years, his cartoons have become collectors' items. But at the exhibition, many of them were found starry eyed.

A visitor, Vivek Sengupta, said, "Personally, I have a collection of all his cartoons. This is something I had not seen. A must see for all cartoon lovers."
 Another visitor, Satish, described the show as a "gold mine".

The cartoons, though more than three decades old, still found resonance among viewers.

One admirer, Chandraprakash, said, "Even though they were mostly drawn in the '80s, we can still relate to some of these."

Sumani, another fan, said, "These images that you can see -- this is what I am also thinking."